Yeah, baby! Finally there’s an ETF that Austin Powers would love

Bloomberg – In the war for exchange-traded fund assets, getting attention matters – even if that means channeling Austin Powers.

In what could be seen as a nod to the movie franchise starring Mike Myers, WisdomTree Investments chose the grooviest stock ticker around for its latest bond fund: SHAG.

Oh, behave!

The WisdomTree Barclays Yield Enhanced US Short-Term Aggregate Bond Fund – the ETF’s more pedestrian full name – will invest in investment-grade debt that has a short maturity, the company said in a press release on Thursday. While investors will obviously judge the fund by its holdings and performance, the symbol SHAG is all but guaranteed to draw attention.

“It works,” said Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “People start calling a fund by its ticker, and there’s evidence that having a good ticker can give you an edge.”

Colorful stock tickers are nothing new in the world of ETFs. With more than 1 800 funds available in the US alone, standing out amid the crowd with a memorable moniker is almost as important as performance.

HACK, a cyber security-focused fund, demonstrated the power of a name in 2015, when it gathered more than $1bn in its first year. However, others such as WSKY (which invests in the liquor industry), OLD (care for pensioners) and MENU (restaurants) have seen less success so far. Regardless of how funky they get, most of these kinds of tickers allude to the fund’s strategy.